Online and Offline Personas: Serendipitous Sofie

So my friend Kelly Kampen celebrated his birthday in the VIP section of Alchemy last night, and something really funny happened.

As I was about to leave, I ran into a girl I had not seen at the party before. We talked for a while, exchanging first names. Later in our conversation, she mentioned that she blogs for FHM. That’s when it clicked:

We both just cracked up laughing. We’d been chatting online and reading each other’s blogs, but we didn’t immediately recognize each other upon meeting offline. There we were in the VIP lobby, chattering away like strangers, oblivious to the fact that we already knew each other! I thought her eyes looked familiar and she thought my smile looked familiar, but we were both utterly clueless until that much-delayed moment of mutual recognition.

I suddenly wonder about the differences between online and offline personas. Think of the people you know only online. Would you immediately recognize them offline?